Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches Review

Live and let die.

An engaging end to the first installment in a potentially great franchise.

7Out of 10

7Out of 10

Excellent world, as ever

Considerable replay value

Blink still overpowered

Irritating AI

The final chapter of both Dishonored's overall narrative and the assassin Daud's DLC side-story, The Witches of Brigmore is a satisfying - if frustrating - end to one of this generation's most impressive new IPs.

Following directly on from The Knife of Dunwall (transferring your abilities and decisions across as well), Witches is a bigger - if not necessarily better - experience than what came before. As Daud, you'll have to infiltrate the prison Corvo escaped from at the start of the main game, settle a dispute between rival gangs in a turf war played out in an upmarket shopping/textile district, before finally infiltrating a decrepit country estate to eliminate the head of the Witches, attempting to atone for killing the empress as you do so.

All of Dishonored's famed hallmarks are there: a beautiful world, intriguing political game-playing, and highly replayable levels. Sadly, chief failings are also on show - high levels of trial and error, overpowered abilities, and the feeling that your first run-through is sure to be nothing more than a glorified trial.

Some of those problems also afflict other stealth titles - older Hitman games being obvious examples - but they're escalated by the first-person nature of Dishonored. There's also the rather spotty enemy AI to contend with - where and when they can see you seems to change minute-to-minute. Chuck in the fact that they can teleport and respawn and you've got a recipe for frustration - when a witch appears behind you after minutes of sneaking, you'll howl in frustration.

But you'll persevere. Because despite these faults, Dishonored's world is still great (even if these maps aren't top-tier, with too much time spent fetch-questing) and the sheer number of different ways you can approach the missions - and improve your score - makes for compulsive gaming. Story-wise, it's a nice ending to a potentially great new IP. For it to reach those heights, however, it'll have to tighten up its gameplay next time around.

Version Tested: Xbox 360. Played for around 4 hours. Click here to read about VideoGamer.com's new review policy.